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Good capitalism, not a Cold War
Putin and his Gazprom chief Alexei Miller haven't started a new Cold War - it's just business
The evil Kremlin, we're told, is playing politics with its energy reserves again. It has turned off the taps to Ukraine, and potentially millions of Bulgarians, Hungarians and Austrians are going to freeze to death.
But there's a problem with putting this price spat into the broader, more cynical context of what the media like to call a 'new Cold War'. Russia, in demanding higher prices for the gas it sells to Ukraine, is doing what any normal state would do. The most bizarre accusation thrown at Moscow is the aggrieved claim that it "uses energy as a political tool". Well, of course it does that¹s what energy-rich states do.
It's vaguely similar to militarily powerful states using the threat of force as a political tool, just much less effective. And it's certainly no different from rich nations like the United States giving massive financial and military aid to regimes like Georgia that it thinks are strategically important and wants to keep onside.
Russia lost the former Soviet republics, but wanted to keep them in its sphere of influence. One of the few enticements they could offer was to give them cheap gas. It turned out that in many cases, cheap gas wasn't enough to keep them sweet. Ever since the Orange Revolution, it was pretty clear that the enticements hadn't worked, and it would be bizarre for the subsidies to continue.
Energy flows from Russia are unstable. Crying ‘new-Cold-War’ wolf won't help
So, not unreasonably, they wanted to bring the price into line with what they charge other countries.
Gazprom, of course, is not a particularly nice company. It's monopolistic and opaque. It has seen that Ukraine is in trouble and is seeking, with the Kremlin's backing, to extract maximum advantage. It has negotiated clumsily and aggressively.
But it also understands that European markets are vital in these times of falling energy prices and recession and is unlikely to risk a collision with Europe by turning the gas off, just to prove a point to the Ukrainian government in Kiev.
What seems to have happened in this case is that Kiev, remembering the European outcry that can be raised when gas supplies are interrupted, has decided to cut off the gas that transits Ukraine to gain leverage in price negotiations on its own gas.
What none of this changes, of course, is that energy flows to Europe from Russia are unstable. But crying 'new-Cold-War' wolf is not going to help. Given that Russian gas was not reaching Europe anyway, Russia has therefore decided to stop all flows of transit gas into Ukraine.
The blame for any frozen Bulgarians lies more in Kiev this time than it does in Moscow. ·
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This is another one of those strange articles that makes me wonder about editorial standards and fact checking in The First Post. There may be some valid points to be made about price changes being a transition from subsidised to commercial pricing (would be nice to see some facts and figures discussed, along with any arguments regarding the level of transit fees to be paid to Ukraine), but the suggestion that Ukraine is cutting into transit supplies merely to garner European support seems unlikely, given the more likely reason would be the tapping of transit supplies by Ukraine to supply its own citizens. The suggestion that what Gazprom is doing is just business, in the middle of winter, also appears to be stretching the definition of business.
I appreciate The First Post tries to provide some different points of view, and one can always interpret facts differently, but where opinion is presented without facts, and appears to bear a very particular slant, it probably should be clearly labelled as opinion, and not be allowed to masquerade as factual journalism.
I think Britain would be well advised to cultivate closer ties with Russia and act as a bridge between east and west. It is clear that the same fate now befalls the west as occurred in Russia when the soviet republics fell apart. Only al Qaeda will benefit and it is in the interest of all states to prevent this. A gas pipeline through the nothern baltic countries would be safer and more reliable for Russia and Europe. Jump to it Millipede Miliband.
Nonsense. This is surly Russia clumsily punishing a former satellite for daring to be independent and siding with the West. Just because the cold war is 'over' doesn't mean Russia is any more the civilised neighbour than it ever was. Walker seems to have swallowed the Russian story, rather than the equally valid explanation that Russia is trying to turn the screws on Ukraine by blaming it for non delivery to Europe. If Russia wants to trade with the West perhaps it should stop assassinating dissidents in Western countries then denying it, and acting like a Mafia with gas in the coldest part of the year. But then it IS Mafia run.